Why are Kiwis allowed to work for whalers?

The government’s response to the sinking of the Ady Gil, just the latest chapter in the seemingly never ending saga of Japanese south seas whaling, has been the usual waffle. Minister McCully urges restraint, but says New Zealand’s influence is too small to do more.

This is disappointing to say the least, given the strong stance NZ has taken at the International Whaling Commission. Green Co-leader Russel Norman calls it “gutless”. And that individuals are willing to put their lives at risk to challenge whalers while their govt stands by makes it even worse. Surely there is more we can do – here are two ideas.

Green Tasmanian Senator Bob Brown is urging the Australian govt to bring a challenge against Japan in the International Court of Justice. Why not a joint challenge from NZ and Oz? Our two countries working together would surely make a very strong case.

Australian Ministers are talking up some form of legal action. Where are our Ministers – in trade talks with the Japanese, perhaps?

And is it not ironic that the person delivering Japanese spin to New Zealanders is Kiwi Glenn Inwood? I wonder what he’s being paid to organise those spy planes for the Japanese. Surely our government is embarrassed that a New Zealand national is involved in such activities given our strong position against whaling in the international community.

So Greens here and in Australia are also looking at introducing legislation into both our Parliaments to make it illegal for our respective citizens to aid or abet whaling. That would make Inwood’s operation illegal in NZ.

New Zealander’s have been consistant in their calls for strong action to keep whales safe in our own back yard. It’s time for the National led govt to show it will take the same strong stance that NZ is known for.

The contract analogy for farming falls apart on the issue of consent. A contract has to have the informed consent of both parties and obviously animals cannot give theirs.

There also seems to be a strange impression that farms are some sort of Eden for animals. Nothing can be further from the truth. Sheep are continually afraid of the top predators on the block, humans and canines. In controlled experiments sheep have been found to be extremely intelligent animals who can recognise individual sheep with a memory of up to 11 years. Put they often appear terrified on a farm, which has led to the myth that they are stupid creatures.

Apart from regular periods of terror, sheep often are stuck without shelter from the sun in summer and from rain and cold in winter. I have been on farms where ewes have been left to die after child birth. Sheep are tail docked and castrated without anaesthetic, and merino crosses are mulesed. Studies have shown this can cause long term “phantom limb” pain.

Cows don’t fare any better. Continual milking takes its toll in lameness and mastitis and they are also dehorned and castrated without anaesthetic.

This is not taking into account factory farms, nor the long periods of boredom that are interspersed with seconds of panic. Then there is the extremely traumatic journey to the slaughterhouse, often over days, and the violent and often prolonged slaughter itself. If I was offered a
“contract” with the terms and conditions of a sheep or a cow, I would tear it up.

Owen. Pastured cattle, brainless? I worked with and liked, dairy cows. Their opportunities for thoughtful interactions with the environment were very few indeed. Grass. Stony lane. Shed. Grass. An aurock living in a herd, bulls, calves, etc. free to roam and forgage from a multitude of foods, clamber over rock, wade rivers, roll in dust etc. Can’t for the life of me understand why stimulations like that wouldn’t develop a brighter beast.
Your pig example? Wild pig .v. domesticated pig, same situation. Natural environment with it’s 1001 variations, or a sty, paddock or stall. Hmmmm.
I certainly don’t dislike all human interactions with animals (though many are appalling), but feel sure that wild animals are the more alert, stimulated of the two choices.
As to farm dogs, some are sharp, it’s true, but I’ve worked on a number of stations and farms where the dogs spend by far the greater part of their time chained to their kennels. Dogs in a pack in whatever part of the world they sprang from, would be far more sophisticated and stimulated than most farm dogs.
Enjoyed the revelation that you’d prefer to be a domesticated animal, rather than a wild one.

All the comments I was responding to were along the lines “what’s the difference with killing sheep and cows” and I stuck with them and threw in deer as another ruminant.

Pigs. That depends on how they are raised I agree. But I am sure that the pigs around me would sooner stay where they are than be released into the bush to be hunted down by dogs and hunters with knives.

I don’t know why you assume pastured cattle are more brainless than wild ones. Do you assume that working dogs are brainless compared to wolves?

You do seem to see all human interactions with other animals as the hand of Cain. And yet many animals chose domestication when given the chance. I know I would.

Owen – in what way is the cloistered, challengeless, brainless life of a farmed cow or sheep (I notice you didn’t include pigs), ‘First-class’?
Are you believeing that because they are protected from wolf attack, their life is better? Less likely to turn their ankle in the billiard-table paddocks that they are trapped in and therefore ‘lucky’?
I think about wild sheep; sharp witted, honed by their day to day activities and able to travel as far and fast as they might wish and compare them with the institutionalised ‘flocking stupid’ sheep we see in their rectangular farm worlds.

Your comments on whales and whaling were very interesting and well thought out.

On the other matter:
Why do we allow New Zealanders to work for Greenpeace?
Why do we allow New Zealanders to work for Russian Banks?
Why do we allow New Zealanders to work for the UN?
Why do we allow New Zealanders to work for French arms manufacturers.
Why do we allow New Zealanders to work for Subsidised EU farmers?
Why do we allow New Zealanders to work for Islamists?
Why do we allow New Zealanders to work for the Catholic Church?
Why do we allow New Zealanders to work for the Abortion Clinics?

The main argument against killing whales is that we have no “social contract” with the whales.

When we farm cows and sheep we actually provide them with a first class life, protected from predators and diseases and all the dreadful things they are exposed to in “the state of nature”.
And then we kill them with far less pain and stress than they endure in nature. Just we put our dogs down rather that let them go through a long and “natural” death.

We make no such deal with the whales. We do not improve their quality of life while they are alive and we do not have any technology which guarantees them a swift and painless death. Indeed harpooning must be one of the worst deaths imaginable.
I went fishing yesterday, and while I have not improve their quality of life they feel no pain and death is quick.
And a lot of petrels were better fed than otherwise.
But whales? No. They are mammals and feel pain. BUt our relationship with them is zero compared to benefits we bestow upon our cattle, sheep and deer.

Yes Samiuela there are a number of double standards applied to whaling, and here are some more.

1. Production of sheep and cows probably causes more environmental damage than killing whales.

Global warming, water pollution, and most destructive of all, habitat destruction. New Zealand did not rise from the sea full of pesticide drenched pastures and belching cows, it was actually a biodiversity hot spot rivaling Madagascar, and yet most of our lowland forests have now been removed to fuel the worlds insatiable demand for flesh.

2. Whales are intelligent creatures.

Yes they are, but so are pigs, found in one intelligence test to have more cognitive ability than a 3 year old child. Yet we imprison these intelligent creatures in a system of physical and psychological torture that the Spanish Inquisition would be proud of.

I support Sea Shepherd, and I have also spoken out against the torture of pigs, cow cubicles, vivisection, rodeos, most zoos, battery cages, clinically obese broiler chickens that are bred to be so top heavy their legs literally cannot carry them, mulesing, dehorning, castration and docking in cows and sheep, and all the other wonderful things that go on quite legally and with the government’s blessing in our so called enlightened and “civilised” country.

I also don’t eat any animal products so can speak out against whaling without hypocrisy. But even if I did eat flesh, that would only say something about me; it would not say anything about whether whaling, factory farming, vivisection and the rest of the ritualised abuse of animals is right.

Sea Shepherd is high profile and has the public on its side. Unfortunately other equally worthy causes such as tuna fishing do not. Until they do, we need to pick our battles to the ones that are winnable. Hopefully the plight of the whales will help open the minds of the public to other atrocities that go on in the name of the great god “economic growth”.

I personally agree with this, but then killing of many types of animals for food is inhumane (some more so than others). If we are going to accuse the Japanese of inhumanity to animals, it might pay to clean up our own backyard first.

2) Whaling is opposed on the grounds that whales are endangered, and any amount of whaling is likely to threaten their continued existence.

This is likely true, at least for most species. On the other hand, the same arguments could be applied to many other animals used for food. I don’t hear such an outcry over tuna fishing, yet current tuna fishing practises are unsustainable. Unfortunately for the tuna fish, their looks and the fact they are not mammals means they don’t receive the same amount of public sympathy as whales do.

So I am not supporting whaling, but simply pointing out some double standards which need to be addressed if we expect the whaling nations to take us seriously.

RP; Try killing your own meat for a while – 4 or 5 years of slaughter ought give you an insight into the terrible violence we do to creatures with feelings much like our own.
I guarantee you won’t feel the same way – or more accurately – you Will Feel Something!

And the Japanese claim that we need to respect their culture is totally off the wall. The supposed Japanese cultural “tradition” for whaling did not get under way until after WW2. And even if whaling is part of their culture, so what. Some cultural norms are simply wrong and should die out. My own culture had a long tradition of inbred upper class retards yelling “yoiks” and similar nonsense and getting their jollies from seeing a pack of hounds rip a defenseless animal to pieces. This practice has now been banned, and British culture is certainly no poorer as a result.

The United States and New Zealand actually had a longer whaling tradition than Japan. They evolved in their perspective and are now opposed to whaling. Neither US nor New Zealand culture are any poorer either.

The Japanese tried to destroy witnesses in the Southern Ocean near Antarctica specifically because they were in the zone that they are not supposed to be ‘researching’ in – the Southern Whale Sanctuary – so, yes, their actions were illegal in the instance of whaling, and doubly illegal in the instance of terminally holing another maritime vehicle, then failng to acknowledge distress (mayday) calls, until they knew that another vessel, the Bob Barker, a converted Norwegian whaling ship that is on it’s first season sailing with Sea Shepherd, had responded to the Ady Gil’s distress call.

They have contravened maritime law, and as has so frequently happened in the past, the Japanese are making no attempt to even acknowledge the rights of other ocean users in their headlong rush to eliminate all whales from the oceans.

I suggest you try reading, say, wikipedia on the International Whaling Convention, which has signatories from all whaling nations and ex-whaling nations (NZ included), which codifies the international treaties on access to fisheries’ grounds for whaling purposes, given the highly endangerd state of most whale species. Since I first owned a Friends of The Earth publication about whale species, in the 1980’s, about half of those species have been fished to extinction by the Japanese primarily, although Norway has done it’s share of damage in the North Sea.

The stupidity of Japanese whaling practices can really only be understood if you think about the tautology of basing an entire cultures’ food commodity procurance around species they are hunting to extinction – as they are doing with tuna and other species’ fishstocks – we will miss the majestic beauty of these fine mammals, but the japanese are heading towards crashing their own most important food source.

“Kjuv said: The first question is whether or not the whales need to be killed.
What do you reckon?”

This is the real issue at hand, we can argue about semantics all day but it won’t change the fact that it is very hard to justify killing these animals.
Whaling is an outdated and completely unnecessary practice.

Nope, Res Publica, just talkin’ about stuff. You’ve not been branded. Your statements are made and displayed. I don’t agree with some of your statements, but others may feel differently.
Kjuv said: The first question is whether or not the whales need to be killed.
What do you reckon?

I suspect, Res Publica, that those who were on the Ady Gil, did care that the killing was cruel, did act on their belief and did put themselves into grave danger to protect the whales from the actions of men who, presumably, like you, don’t think harpooning whales is cruel

You infer that my personal actions need protecting from by lumping me in with people I dont necessarily identify myself with. I find that to be an ad hominem attack. As for being branded a barbarian and traitor does perhaps the dissaproval I seem to be generating perhaps point towards a rather outspoken antipathy towards both my ideas and my person?

An inhumane act can be regarded as a cruel act performed by humans. An aspect of cruelty is to inflict unnecessary pain on the victim. Now, there is no doubt that the whales experience pain through these actions. It is really a question of whether or not it is necessary (for the betterment of mankind perhaps?) for the whales to suffer.
The first question is whether or not the whales need to be killed. If this is answered in the affirmative we then need to establish if the method used is humane (or at least involves a minimin of cruelty).

Well, aside from the ‘cruelty’ argument you’ve already dismissed, there are many others. The existance of a whale watching industry in NZ might indicate that there are those who both believe that the whales are a better resource alive than dead and object to the killing of their attractions and the conflict that is exposed in a Government that supports such and industry, yet seems reluctant to decry the destruction of the animals that are the source of a great deal of revenue for New Zealanders.
To give but one example.

Secondly, why and how it is inhumane?

Thought I’d covered this. You said you don’t care if it is cruel. I equate cruel, especially unnecessarily cruel, with inhumane.

Thirdly, how the illegal actions of a select few die hards can be seen to heroic or even good for the cause of enviromentalism and now finally why a desire for the issue to be solved reasonably by reasonable people using a reasonable system brands me a barbarian and a traitor.

I missed the point where you were branded a traitor. Please use the blockquote function to point to this.
Barbarian? Is that someone who regards harpooning as not cruel, or doesn’t care if it is? No comment.

It is the height of bad form to resort to attacking people ad hominem Greenfly. No-one needs to be protected from me or my actions thank you very much.
I can’t see the ad hominem attack eaither Res Publica. Please blockquote.

Snice1 – distasteful? I’ve not used that term, nor have I called for banning anything. My argument is that the protesters acted because they believe the actions of the Japanese whalers to be cruel.

Piracy? That has a fairly specific legal definition relating to boarding boats and kidnapping. The only people who have engaged in anything near this description are the Japanese whalers who have deliberately rammed a boat with criminal disregard for human life. Attempted murder may be hard to prove because the court would need to establish they intended to kill, but they should certainly be arrested under other serious criminal charges. Sea shepherd have never been convicted of any criminal offense and it certainly isn’t for want of the authorities trying.

Try to get your facts right next time before making potentially libelous allegations.

Thirdly, how the illegal actions of a select few die hards can be seen to heroic or even good for the cause of enviromentalism and now finally why a desire for the issue to be solved reasonably by reasonable people using a reasonable system brands me a barbarian and a traitor.

It is the height of bad form to resort to attacking people ad hominem Greenfly. No-one needs to be protected from me or my actions thank you very much.

I suspect, Res Publica, that those who were on the Ady Gil, did care that the killing was cruel, did act on their belief and did put themselves into grave danger to protect the whales from the actions of men who, presumably, like you, don’t think harpooning whales is cruel. I’m admiring the Sea Shepard team more and more, the longer we talk.

Slavery and Nazism were both “distasteful yet legal” pursuits. They were not abolished by people wailing on the sidelines and wringing their hands, but by the equivalent of sea shepherd, actually out there and doing something. Full marks to Sea Shepherd for actually saving whales, not talking about it like the Australian and New Zealand government and Greenpeace are doing.

The only illegal activity on the south seas is the GBH, criminal negligence, willful damage and possible attempted murder of humans on the Ady Gil, and the continuing hunting of whales in violation of international law.

Res Publica – both are intertwined in such a way as to be practically inseperable. The present system of killing whales is cruel and there is no alternative that looks as though it could be any better. That in itself is enough. Should a humane method be developed, the question of whether to whale or not could be reopened.
Do you Res Publica, think harpooning whales is cruel or not cruel?

Jezza: I think thats what Bluewater Navy is: a navy that can operate in the ocean as opposed to just off the coast. Like the idea though. Cant go past good ole’ fashioned (in this case literal) gunboat diplomacy

If Wayne Mapp and his Aussie counterpart had any balls the day after the incident they would have announced a joint “exercise” with both navies sending frigates to “observe” and make sure no further incidents happen, if the Japanese didn’t the point then I’d be suprised…

I thought the whole idea of operation defender or whatever the procurement was called, was to change our navy from a bluewater one to one that could protect our EEZ and Southern ocean interests…

Res Publica – Death by harpooning is cruel and inhumane. Whether or not you agreee with the death penalty for humans, efforts have been made in the Western world to make that death ‘humane’ through the use of electricity and poison, rather than skinning alive etc. Sheep and cattle are killed with methods described as ‘humane’. Shooting them with a harpoon in the paddock would not be considered humane by New Zealanders. Harpooning whales can be similarly considered as ‘not humane’.
I’ve not said that ‘the end (of the protest) justifies the means. I believe that protest in the southern ocean by people who believe that the killing of whales in the way that they are being killed by the Japanese, is justified.

But why is harpooning whales inhumane? What makes whaling such an abhorrent act?

You seem to take a rather utilitarian view that in terms of anti-whaling protest action that the ends justify the means: a view taken by many a believer in the cause in the past 2000 years or so. It is very easy for us to justify our actions by stating that our cause is more righteous than the other side’s. However political nonchalance and thumbing ones nose at international law is no substitute for the goodwill of the people your are alienating with your actions. Governments must follow Rousseau’s “General Will” or perish. They dont have to listen to people they can safely lable eco-militants no matter how sage or prescient their cause is.

I’m obviously against the Japanese whalers and think we should take steps to stop them.

On the other hand, I’m not happy for NZ (or any state) to control the actions of its citizens outside the country. Generally, the laws of the country should apply (and on the ocean, the agreed international treaties). If we had a treaty that proscribed whaling, then NZers could (and probably would) be prosecuted for breaching it. It would be good to have such a treaty.

But I don’t like the idea of NZ claiming paternal rights over anyone born here.

You say, “Of course whaling is inhumane for the very simple fact that whales aren’t human.”

It’s the actions of the whalers that I’m saying is ‘inhumane’.
The things that humans do can be classified as ‘humane’ or ‘inhumane’.
Inhumane behaviour is not only that which is directed at human’s, it’s that which comes from human’s. Harpooning whales is cruel and inhumane.
The Sea Shepherd’s activities in the southern ocean result from their belief that the pursuing and harpooning of whales is cruel. The legality or otherwise of the activity is a secondary concern, useful for levering the change they seek. I support their protests because of the basis from which they act – opposing cruelty to whales.

Could the slaughtering of whales by harpoon ever be though of as ‘humane’?

We in NZ excuse our farm animal raising and slaughtering by saying that it’s done ‘humanely’, but does that reasoning apply to the Japanese activities in the southern ocean?

The problem with simply labelling whaling inhumane is that the nomenclature confuses the issue even further. Of course whaling is inhumane for the very simple fact that whales aren’t human. Intelligent yes, majestic yes, but not human. Why then should they be put up on the pedestal and made into martyrs? Its simply ludicrous to expect that animals be treated to the same standard that humans are.Because they are not.

Legislating against New Zealanders working in the whaling industry (or in any industry) would set a dangerous legal precedent restricting freedom of expression and the right to self-determination. It is one of the core values of the modern democratic system that regardless of the distate ones fellow citizens may hold for behaviour, as long as it violates no accepted code of conduct (legal or social) it is acceptable. Why not make it illegal to join fringe lunatics like Sea Shepherd instead? It may actually help whales more.

What organisations like Sea Shepherd and to a lesser extent Greenpeace do not have the detachment or political savy to realise is that ‘sticking it to the man’ creates more antipathy than doing nothing. Actions such as commiting acts of piracy or endagering the lives of people engaged in a distasteful but perfectly legal pursuit do nothing except alienate their cause from the people that may actually care. Why does the average kiwi distrust the Greens and the Green movement? because all they see are the extremists, the militants; the vociferous ravings of a select few whose delusions of being able to use puerile drama to push a point are far outside political reality.

It is time to grow up children. We are all adults now. It is time to start acting like it.

Interesting in the link posted by Greenfly that Glenn Inwood describes the whaling as harvest for food. I appreciate his honesty on this and can only wonder about the cowardice that the Japanese use to describe the whaling as “Scientific”.

In 2007 a fish shop in Kojiya, near Haneda Airport, was selling Whale Bacon in 200g packs for 2680 yen which converted to NZ$166/kg at that time. It seem that science is worth a lot of money.
Just thought that someone may be interested.

“What will it take for the New Zealand government to stand up and do something?”

I reckon slipping into the chamber early and putting tacks in their chairs would get them moving… although considering the dead weight tonnage involved, nine-inch nails might be more appropriate.

The answer to this is of course, for people to signal to the government that they disapprove in a significant way. A successful no-confidence motion might do it. We aren’t even close.

This isn’t just a matter of the government in power. It is a matter of the people who PUT that government in power. People who are advised by Newspapers that Lie and Talk-Show hosts who don’t know the truth well enough to call what they do lying.

The government will not act on things that even it ADMITS it has to fix (favoritism shown to investments in housing, regulation of investment houses).

“I believe that most New Zealanders are reasonable people who would say, “If whaling has no effect on the status of the population, then what’s the problem? It’s just like killing (slaughtering) a cow or a sheep”

“”Not only is the Japanese whaling fleet illegally trying to kill whales in the
Southern Ocean, they’re now also trying to kill the people protecting the whales,”
says co-leader Russel Norman. “What will it take for the New Zealand government to stand up and do something?”

Free speech and Freedom of Expression under the BORA is a two way street , we may hate whatever actions certain people do but we should prosecute for speech, this man is not personally going out and shooting whales so why punish him, by all means NZ should be appalled but not punishing because his view on a certain action is different

The World Court in Geneva is probably the best option.
Japanese are sending ‘scientists’ a long way to kill all the Whales they can find – at the same time sending tourists to photograph the Remainders off Kaikoura…….my, it almost seems like one of those quaint English detatchments from reality.
In truth, the damage to our tourist earnings done by whale-killers is probably measurable and should be persued under specific Writ, Public and Private.
But can Govt dictate which Citizen works where?
I doubt it.
The downside represents a massive demolition of our remaining natural ‘uman rights.
True change only evolves through education I find – and the Fly is a Teacher you know….
On the local Front Page this morning a Guy was suggesting Hone Harawhira as a potential ‘teacher’ of youth.
We can not afford to teach our children hate